The invention deals with an anchor for an artificial ligament which is passed through a bone, the anchor consisting of a socket supported in the bone and a clamp element, where a ligament may be drawn into one arm of the socket. The clamp element is adjustable transversely to the ligament in order to apply a clamping force to the drawn-in ligament.
In the EP-A 0 465 408 a simple ligament anchor with a conical clamping socket is shown which is supported in a self-locking manner in a conical anchor socket. Similarly FR-A 2 586 927 and EP-A 0 232 049 show conical clamp elements which are pushed into an extension from the ligament like a sock in order to clamp it against an anchor socket. This anchor socket may in turn be reclamped which demands additional elements for it presupposes some skill on the part of the operating surgeon in order to coordinate the opposite movements of ligament stretching and clamping in such a manner that the ligament is secured with the desired prestress.
Moreover the EP-A 0 330 328 shows an anchor for a crucial ligament, in which through an axial offset an oblique shoulder is generated in the bore for receiving the ligament and by the ligament being compressed directly by the rounded tip of a grubscrew fitted transversely to the axis or indirectly via a deformable intermediate shell, between the tip and the oblique shoulder. For permanent location of the ligament the friction which is generated through pressure between the tip and the oblique shoulder must be adequate. Incautious clamping leads to peak pressures which injure the material of the ligament.